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Tag: Sun

People waking up in the Australian Outback Friday morning, along with other parts of the Pacific, were among the lucky few to witness a “ring of fire” solar eclipse, as the moon slipped between the Earth and the sun, covering everything but a blazing ring of light around the edges.

A new book by an executive at a major German power ultility claims we aren’t facing a climate catastrophe and rejects current mainstream ideas on global warming. Both climate change skeptics and those who warn of global warming profit from such controversies — so who should we believe?

Science can be so easy — at least when it is stripped of its nuances. Fritz Vahrenholt and his colleague, geologist Sebastian Lüning, say the world isn’t facing a climate catastrophe. The two are peddling precisely the kind of theory that generates publicity and allows both sides of the debate to profit. But it also leaves people wondering who they should believe.

The authors both work for German electric utility company RWE, where Vahrenholt is an executive. In their book “Die Kalte Sonne” (“The Cold Sun”), they claim that important research about climate change has been kept under wraps and that cries of an impending climate catastrophe are misleading. Their book arrived in book stores in Germany last week, with considerable media attention.

Following their statements, newspapers like the conservative tabloid Bild are dismissing what they call the “CO2 lie.” This camp says it’s not greenhouse gases that are behind the problem. It’s the sun that determines climate change, they argue.

The book is the latest salvo in the ongoing debate over global climate change. It’s a perpetual conflict that leaves people asking questions like: What’s really going on with the climate? What kind of picture can you draw from current research? The most reliable source on the topic is the climate report produced by the United Nations. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) puts together a report every few years about the state of knowledge in the field. The report documents in detail where researchers are unsure or just don’t know. Contrary to what many IPCC critics say, however, the report reads like a book filled with doubts. But there’s also a “summary for political decision makers” section, which is put together by civil servants rather than researchers, and which can appear to be biased in places.